by Hal Clement
The result was that the Proteus came to a sudden, grinding halt as the ram of the Carthaginian tore into her hull at the water line. The rowers of both ships toppled backward from their benches; Gizona might have laughed at the sight had he been in any position to observe it. However, the shock sent the mast to which he was clinging whipping forward, tearing him from his grip.
Even in the midst of the uproar, he was noticed; a shout of laughter sounded from the deck of the Carthaginian as he shot through the air, together with the words "Try flying, pirate!"
Even as the water closed over his head he found himself wondering just who were the pirates and who were the honest men on the Mediterranean.
CHAPTER 4
The whip of the mast had combined with the blow of the ram and the roll of both ships to hurl Gizona away from the larger vessel, so he struck the water with the Proteus between him and the Carthaginian. He could swim well enough, though he was not used to the feel of salt water in his eyes, and managed to get back to the surface even though he had struck nearly flat and had the breath knocked out of him. Even before he got his hair out of his eyes, he had a pretty good idea what was happening, for the clanging of bronze weapons could be plainly heard.
Once he could see, he struck out for the Proteus. A few strokes brought him in reach of one of the trailing oars, left unmanned as the men had sprung to the fight. Its blade sank under his weight as he tried to climb the shaft, but the thong which kept it from sliding out into the sea was still sound and he was able to reach the bulwark with its aid. Very cautiously he raised his head to look over.
It was not really a fight. The Greeks were far outnumbered; more than half of them were down or out of sight-probably in the sea-already, and every few seconds another fell. Armored men had swarmed from the bigger galley to the Proteus’ deck, while others had stayed behind and were using their bows. Orestes fell, an arrow through his neck. Fighters of both sides were yelling abuse at each other. Gizona found he could understand the Carthaginians about as easily as he could the Greeks; their language resembled somewhat that of Tartessos.
Another of their expressions was pretty easy to understand, too; with a sharp whizz and thud, an arrow lodged in the bulwark a few inches from his head. Gizona ducked frantically, and almost fell back into the sea.
There he thought, really thought; it was the strongest persuasion to use his brain that he had ever experienced. He could not climb back to the deck; there were too many archers, and they couldn’t all miss. Besides, the deck would not help much for long; the bow of the Proteus had already settled quite a bit as water rushed through the hole torn by the Carthaginian's ram, and the pentakonter could not possibly float much longer. A quick glance around showed that the shore was too far away-two miles, perhaps three. Gizona considered himself a good swimmer, but he had never even dreamed of swimming a distance like that. Mountain pools don’t offer enough practice.
However, the same glance showed the other Carthaginian ship sweeping in. She should be alongside in a few moments, and the attention of her crew should be on the fight. If Gizona could escape their notice until they arrived, and then swim around to her far side under the overhang formed by the great galley’s rowing banks, he might gain her deck unnoticed. What would happen then he didn’t know, but at least they’d have no reason to shoot him down on the spot, and he’d be out of the water. Even if they threw him back he’d be no worse off than he was at the moment; there was still the shore, hopeless as that seemed.
He settled as low as he could in the water, still clinging to the oar for support as the huge ship came up. For a moment he almost screamed in terror as it swung alongside and seemed about to crush him against the Penteconter’s hull; but the oars prevented that, and she ground to a stop alongside without, apparently, the boy’s being noticed. Another crowd of yelling men poured onto the sinking galley, and the boy began to work his way around to the outer side of the newcomer.
There was no alarm, even when he worked his way between | the steering oar and the hull, though it seemed unlikely that there would be no one there. He went on around the stern until he could no longer see the Proteus, and began to look for a way up. This proved easy enough; while the oars had not been left trailing on this side, they had been thrust into racks which held them pointing almost straight out to the side, and the lower bank was in easy reach from the water. Gizona seized one of these, used it to work his way up against the hull until he could stand on its shaft, and was then able to use the second bank in the same fashion. He was extremely careful in raising his head above the ship’s side this time, but no arrows flew his way. Very few men were aboard the great vessel, and none were looking in his direction. Tensing his arms, Gizona pulled himself over the side onto the upper tier of rowers’ benches.
He was still somewhat below deck level; this was far enough above the benches to permit archers to shoot over the rowers’ heads even at fairly near and low targets. The space beneath the deck looked inviting, and the boy continued rolling until he was under it.
He had been lucky in more ways than one. Even in those days, many war galleys were rowed by slaves who were chained to the oars. This ship, however, like the Proteus, had a free crew who could all take up arms if necessary. Had it been otherwise, Gizona could not possibly have gotten aboard without two or three dozen slaves’ seeing him. As it was, he saw no one even look his way.
It was perhaps too bad that he didn’t look upward carefully enough.
The hubbub gradually died down, and over the voices of the men and trampling of feet Gizona heard the swirl and gurgle of water as the Proteus slipped beneath the surface. A voice from someone on the deck above him called across to the other Carthaginian in words he could understand perfectly well, though he would almost have preferred not to.
"How did you make out?"
The reply was fainter, but perfectly audible.
"We lost about twenty."
"What did you take? We have some prisoners if you need them." "T think we have plenty. Stand by for a while."
"Just pick the best, and throw the rest overboard. You shouldn’t have any trouble; Greeks are good rowers. Maybe it would be best to let us see any you don’t use so we’ ll have a wider choice; we lost a few men in the fight, too, and a couple went down with the Greek because they stayed too long trying to get the silver out of her."
"All right." Gizona heard feet trample above him once more, and saw men taking their places at the benches to each side. They were only a few feet away from him; long as she was, the galley was very narrow. It was fairly dark where he crouched and the men out in the daylight would probably be unable to see at all clearly below the deck, but the boy worked his way in among some water skins to make sure.
For some time the ships lay still on the water. conversation that reached his ears told Gizona what was happening; the captured Greeks were being set to oars-a few were driven down to fill vacant spaces on his own ship-and the little booty that had been taken from the Proteus was stowed, fortunately not near the boy’s hiding place. Then there was some argument over what was to be done with the rest of the prisoners.
The galley’s commander had ordered them to be thrown overboard, as Gizona had heard; but some of the other officers had apparently taken a fancy to one or two of the Greeks for personal slaves. There was some discussion about this, with the boy straining his ears to determine who was involved.
A deep voice, in which an undertone of amusement was plainly evident, suddenly sounded almost in his ear.
"Come on out, young one. Why should we hold a special argument just for you, later?"
Gizona whirled toward the water skin in whose shelter he had been crouching, to see two faces looking down at him. Their expressions could not be read very easily, since both were largely hidden behind black beards; but there was no real doubt that the one who had spoken meant what he said. Gizona was very effectively trapped; he did not need to look around him again to know that. He hesitated
only a moment before rising to his feet.
"A sensible youngster, friend Nimshi. I should think he might be quite useful. He seems lively enough; he was in the water at the side of the Greek ship when I first saw him from the masthead, and it was really surprising how quickly after that he was crawling over our side. I must remember that, to tell any future customers we may find for him. They should like a nice, nimble boy to run errands or messages."
"Unless they’d rather have a less nimble one who wasn’t so likely to run away," said the other. "I’m not sure he’s worth keeping. If the captain lets us keep him at all, he’ll make us pay for the food he eats until we reach port-you know the old shark as well as I do."
The man whose name Gizona had not yet heard pondered that point for a moment, apparently judging the boy’s size, and shook his head slowly.
"He’s pretty small, and we won’t put him to rowing. He shouldn’t eat much; we could spare enough of our own rations to keep him going, and then fatten him up after we reach shore."
Nimshi shrugged his shoulders, as well as he could in the stooped position the low deck forced on him. "I’m for it if you wish. The moment I find myself getting too hungry, though, over the side he goes."
Gizona’s mind was running around and around in tiny circles, trying to think a way out of this predicament and constantly coming back to the fact that there were the best part of two hundred enemies around him, backed up by several miles of very deep water. The rowers on either side were watching with interest; there was no getting past them by a sudden dash-and nowhere to go if he did. The older of his two captors seemed to guess what was going on under the little fellow’s thatch of dark hair, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Don’t worry, boy, he’s not as terrible as he sounds. He’s young yet, and still thinks he has to make people afraid of him."
To Gizona, the difference between a man of forty and one in his early twenties was too little to mean very much, and he was not sure how to take this remark; but he decided that he might as well hope, at least, that the older one didn’t particularly want to hurt him.
"What will you do with me, then?" he asked as firmly as he could. "I heard someone up on deck order everyone to throw all the Greeks they didn’t need overboard. I don’t see why you should do that; they weren’t doing anything to you."
"It’s the way we treat pirates, young fellow."
"But they weren’t pirates! They were traders, and they paid honestly for what they had. You’re the pirates; I heard someone say that you had been taking silver from the ship before she sunk.’"
"Only ships of Carthage may trade at this end of the Great Sea, boy. All others are pirates, and must suffer the proper punishment when we catch them. The Greeks have no business here; they have the eastern end of the sea for themselves."
Gizona thought that over; apparently the same word could mean different things to different people. Then another point struck him, and after a moment’s thought he decided he would have to ask rather than solve it himself.
"Why do you say we’ catch them? You’re not a Carthaginian yourself, are you?"
The older man looked surprised.
"I’m not, but how did you know? You’ve never seen me before, I’m pretty sure."
"I haven’t, no. But six of the words you’ve said since you’ve been talking to me were said differently from the man I heard on deck— "pirate,’ and "silver,’ and "Greek,’ and— "
"I said he was a sharp young fellow, Nimshi. You know, we might just find some uses for him ourselves."
The older man cast a meaning glance at his companion, and the other nodded slowly.
"I see what you mean," he said. "We’ll have to talk it over. ashore; there are too many ears around here." He had lowered his voice so that the rowers a couple of yards away should not hear, but Gizona was a good deal closer than that. He heard, but there seemed nothing to think about as yet. He simply remembered the words.
"All right." The older man nodded too. "You’d better come up with us then, young one-do you have a name, by the way?" Gizona told him. "All right. Remember you belong to Sargon of
Nineveh and Nimshi the Judean, if anyone tries to hurt you or make you do anything. Can you remember that?"
Gizona merely said he could; he had no intention of bringing the story of his "curse" up at this point. Nimshi led the way aft to a hatchway near the helmsman’s post; the boy had been unable to see it when he came over the side, since his eyes were too close to deck level. That explained to him how the two men had been able to surprise him; he had been expecting anyone who came below decks to come in from the rowers’ benches, and had simply not been watching anything else.
On deck, he looked quickly around; Sargon, mistaking his thoughts, laid one hand on his shoulder.
"You’re a long way from shore, son."
He let his hand drop, and Gizona moved to the edge of the deck nearest the other galley. Her rowers could not be seen at all clearly; she had already drifted some distance away. He thought he could recognize a couple of the Proteus’ former crew on the benches, but he could not really be sure.
He ran his eyes along the rows of men at the benches below him and suddenly drew back from the edge of the deck. One, at least he could recognize. The back of Phaxos’ head might not have had anything special about it to anyone else, but to Gizona’s memory it was as distinctive as the slave’s face. He was at a starboard oar of the lower bank, almost as far aft as the oars extended, so he did not see the boy.
His presence, though, started Gizona thinking again. There seemed every chance for the "curse" story to catch up with him once more. There was no way to run away from it; was there anything else that could be done?
Gizona was very thoughtful as he walked back to his new masters, and his face showed it. He had almost reached them when he saw the Ninevite’s gaze fixed on him in a way that suggested great interest in what the boy might be thinking: and with great effort he tried to assume a casual expression. Sargon said nothing, but his own eyes strayed to the starboard oar banks in a way that Gizona would remember later.
"Sargon! What have you there!" It was the voice that had roared orders to the other ship, and Gizona assumed rightly that it belonged to the commander of the galley. Sargon and Nimshi pulled him forward to a small, neat, and richly dressed man whom they saluted respectfully. The Ninevite explained how he had seen the boy climb aboard, and he and Nimshi had captured him. "We would like to take him as regular spoil, Commander," Sargon finished. "We should be able to get a pretty good price for him in Carthage— or any other port, for that matter."
Gizona, after what his captors had said to each other below deck, awaited the answer with considerable fear— the sea looked no more inviting than it had earlier. However, the captain stroked his beard and nodded at once.
"That seems all right. You will, of course, be responsible for him while on board."
""Of course, Captain." Sargon saluted again and drew his new slave away toward the bow, and Nimshi followed.
"We must have collected more silver than I thought from that Greek,’ the Judean remarked. "I’ve never seen old Borca in such a good humor."
"He’ll probably demand seventy percent of the price we get, the moment we’re back from the market," returned Sargon.
"Likely enough. Well—" Nimshi let his voice trail off, and again a look passed between them.
Gizona noted the look, as he had the other; and he quietly began fitting what he’d seen and heard since coming aboard the huge galley into another picture. There were really too few pieces to do him much good, so far; but the picture gave every promise of being a very interesting one.
He discovered that he was no longer afraid.
CHAPTER 5
Four thousand miles is a long way to row. Of course, the Mediterranean Sea is not four thousand miles long; but for a ship which seldom ventures out of sight of land and pulls ashore each night or each day, if there is some reason for travelling a
t night— to rest its oarsmen, it is quite easy to row that far in getting anywhere. The Proteus had been attacked and sunk off the Spanish coast not far southwest of what is now Barcelona; the galley which had picked up Gizona and Phaxos went for a short distance on her original course, visited a small Carthaginian settlement for a short time, and then returned the way she had come. This took her toward Italy, the way the Greek pentekonter had been travelling.
She did not hurry, and travelled mostly by day, so Gizona’s Memory got a very complete picture of the coasts of southern France and western Italy. Two or three more times she stopped at trading settlements, generally for supplies. Once she broke her custom of staying in sight of land; for after coming southward almost to the toe of Italy’s boot she cut across north of the straits of Messina, followed the northern coast of Sicily, and then cut across the open sea to the African coast. She remained for a fortnight at Carthage, though Gizona saw practically nothing of the city, and then headed eastward along the southern shore of the great sea.